Democracy is the recurrent suspicion that more than half of the people are right more than half of the time.

Treaties, you see, are like girls and roses: they last while they last.

The first requirement of a statesman is that he be dull.

The vice presidency isn’t worth a pitcher of warm piss.

The most hateful torment for men is to have knowledge of everything but power over nothing.

In politics, what begins in fear usually ends in folly.

The affairs of the world are no more than so much trickery, and a man who toils for money or honor or whatever else in deference to the wishes of others, rather than because his own desire or needs lead him to do so, will always be a fool.

Envy is the basis of democracy.

What, to the American slave, is your Fourth of July? I answer: a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him your celebration is a sham.

An appeal to the reason of the people has never been known to fail in the long run.

I work for a government I despise for ends I think criminal.

The poor have sometimes objected to being governed badly; the rich have always objected to being governed at all.

You have all the characteristics of a popular politician: a horrible voice, bad breeding, and a vulgar manner.